As a thank-you for speaking at the GTD Summit my father was given some free credit on the GTD store with which he purchased my sister and I each a GTD Note Taker wallet. I have to say that I am very impressed.

I have long been jealous of my father's GTD wallet which came complete with several spare pads of paper, a pen and pen holder, money holder, and credit card holder. I grew tired of lugging around several pens and different pads of paper in my purse “just in case I have an idea I need to capture.”

The wallets came in a beautiful box which held the wallet, several spare pads of paper (each the right size for the wallet) as well as a few ink re-fills.

I am now fully enjoying my new GTD wallet and the freedom it allows me to capture information on the go. I would highly recommend this product to anyone else who in interested in a great capture tool.

As a thank you gift for working at the GTD summit, my father bought me a GTD NoteTaker Wallet. For years I have always been jealous of the fact that whenever my father wanted to capture an idea or record information, he would simply open his wallet and write it down. In order to accomplish the same task, I used to carry a small pad of paper in my purse but soon abandoned the idea for its bother. It seemed easier to try to remember something or have my father write it down than to lug a notepad around in my purse and deal with bent up, loose, or torn papers.

Have you ever wondered how Santa maintains perspective and control over everything that has his attention? I mean, with all of the letters, a toy shop to supervise, flight plans and air travel restrictions to deal with ... and the weather! It's enough to drive any normal person crazy.

I always thought Santa must have a secret to staying productive. Apparently, he does.

I often tell my clients, "I don't believe we will ever see the truly paperless office but I do believe that we can create a less-paper office." I'd like to share with you one way that I recently helped do this for a very special client - my wife, Kathy.

I recently decided to move all of our personal and business accounting operations to my accounting firm. Having the accounting firm handle all of the QuickBooks accounting including bank reconciliations, billing and writing checks for us is great but it exposes another problem - how to quickly move lots paper securely between us and the accounting firm. Over on my Notes on Productivity blog, I've posted a short video clip and screen shots of my paperless filing system in Lotus Notes.

My daughter, Wendy, recently made a post in the GTD Connect forum about how our family is learning about GTD at the breakfast table. [If you're a GTD Connect subscriber, you can read the posts and respond there.] I thought I would take a moment to share my own thoughts and experience here, too.

Over the years, I've often ask my children to help me test new software and programs. I find that they approach software from a totally different perspective and I always learn new insights as a result of their efforts. (Even Microsoft found benefit in this approach; they distributed Amy & Wendy's podcast on OneNote Shared Sessions to the OneNote design team.) Anyway, back to the GTD breakfast club...

In December, I decided to ask my wife and children to test some prototype features for my productivity software for using Lotus Notes with the GTD methodology. (Little things, like linking projects to actions, switching contexts, and a tickler to calendar system.) In order for them to be effective helpers, however, I knew that they would have to distinguish between the methodology and technology of the productivity equation. I decided that this would be a good time for me to set up more formal GTD instruction for my family.

My daughter, Wendy, is the guest contributor today, with a post she recently wrote in response to a question in the GTD connect forum.

I think the best way to teach your kids GTD is to model it for them. They need to see you doing it so that they can ask questions about it. You could start your child off with mind mapping. (One of the first processes that I learned) Introduce this as a way to remember things, and teach this along side making lists.If your child is young you could have them draw pictures to represent things, then gradually substitute that for words.

This past week, I graduated with a business degree in Organizational Management. I worked hard, and I managed, with God's grace, to keep my grades up throughout the entire program, graduating Summa Cum Laude, with a GPA of 3.988.

I want to publicly thank the Lord for this opportunity and I want to extend my thanks to the many people who have helped, encouraged and supported my efforts. My next action is a significant one, I will be working toward my Master of Information and Knowledge Management degree.

I could not have managed the demands of family, clients, business, and my education, without a great deal of determination, love and support from my wife and children, and my extended family, friends, classmates and clients. My suite of eProductivity tools, along with the Getting Things Doneskill's that I've acquired while serving The David Allen Company, also came in handy for managing the multiple projects and actions I needed to complete along the way.

Well, you would think being the wife of David Allen's "Technology Guru", Eric Mack, that I would have attended countless GTD seminars over the years. Due to child care restraints, it just never happened for me.

In March, a dear aunt stepped forward to watch our children, and I headed with my husband to Santa Monica for David's RoadMap seminar.

The night before David's seminar, Eric told me about some of the questions that David would ask in the seminar. He asked me..."If tomorrow's RoadMap seminar were a wild success, what would that look like?" He wanted to know what I could walk away with that would make my life easier/better/organized, etc..

I frequently share with others how the
clarity of David Allen's methodology for Getting Things Done has influenced
my work as an eProductivity
specialist. Given my role
serving The David Allen Company, I have a unique inside perspective on
how this productive team uses GTD. In short, it's real, and it works.

As I've written before,
great technology is nothing without a sound methodology for getting things
done.

A few days ago, I met Travis
Robertson at a business management
presentation. Travis shared some of his significant goals with me and he
explained that he was finding it a challenge keeping a handle on his projects
and actions. Naturally, I recommended GTD as an approach to consider for
organizing his life. A few days later, I received this email:

Eric,
I want to thank you for recommending Getting Things Done. I picked
up the book over the weekend and had an "Ah ha!" moment with
it. I've tried numerous methods that involved the purchase of someone's
planners and products--all to no avail. They always seemed like they
were trying to make me fit their mold. Getting Things Done really
makes sense to me and I think it will change my life. I'm not an
organized person by nature, but I'm confident this is a system I can actually
use. You piqued my interest when you said, "It so simple, it
can be done on the back of a napkin."

It’s easy
to buy the latest and greatest in technology, but that does not guarantee
a boost in productivity. Without a method for its effective use, the potential
benefit of a new technology will be limited. Technology might even get
in the way.